DMcon 2024 Kochi: Kerala's First Full-Day DevOps Conference — Inside Story

How Kerala's first full-day DevOps conference came together — from sold-out early bird tickets to 15+ expert speakers, hands-on workshops, and a community that made it all possible.

July 29, 2024

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DMcon 2024 Kochi: Kerala's First Full-Day DevOps Conference — Inside Story

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Kerala's first full-day DevOps conference sold out its early bird tickets before we even announced the venue or finalized the speaker panel. That single fact tells you everything about the appetite for this kind of event in the region. I was part of the organizing team and a speaker at DMcon 2024 in Kochi — which meant I saw the event from both sides of the stage. Here's what actually happened, and why it mattered.

What Made DMcon 2024 Different

DevOps practitioners, cloud engineers, and platform engineers in Kerala have historically had to travel to Bangalore, Pune, or Hyderabad to access the density of learning and networking that serious tech conferences provide. DMcon 2024 was built around a simple premise: bring that quality to Kerala. Not a scaled-down regional version — a full-day conference with real technical depth, CNCF ambassadors on stage, and hands-on workshops that attendees could take back to their teams. The results spoke for themselves. The conference hall filled beyond expectations, and more importantly, the hallway conversations had depth — engineers sharing war stories, comparing infrastructure approaches, and debating trade-offs.

The Speaker Lineup

The sessions covered the full spectrum of modern DevOps — from cloud-native infrastructure to Gen AI integration and open source contribution. Keynote & Featured Speakers:

Faseela K — CNCF Ambassador and Istio Steering Committee member (Keynote)
Safeer C M — CDF Ambassador
Sathish VJ — Cloud & DevOps practitioner
Anubhav Singh, Ansil H, Siddharth Vijay — Engineering talks on cloud-native topics
Remya Savithry, Aftab S, Sudhish Nair, Sanjay S, Manoj Chandran, Amit Kumar
Adil Mohamed — Student speaker, first-time conference presenter

Fireside Chat: Sajana Vijayan and Kittu Sabu joined for an open conversation on careers and community in the DevOps space. Hands-on Workshops by Alexy Pulivelil Thomas and Muhammed Sajad gave attendees a chance to get their hands dirty with real tooling.

My Talk

I spoke at DMcon 2024 on platform engineering and cloud-native infrastructure. Here's the full session recording:

The Organizing Reality

Running a community conference is a humbling exercise in logistics. The visible part — the stage, the sessions, the speakers — represents maybe 20% of the work. The rest is everything that has to go right before anyone walks through the door. A few things I learned from the inside: Tickets sell on community trust, not on programme. Our super early bird and early bird tickets sold out before we announced the venue or speakers. That's not marketing — that's community credibility built over years. Speaker coordination never really ends. Confirming speakers weeks in advance doesn't mean the programme is fixed. Topics evolve, content needs shaping, and occasionally plans change. Build more buffer than you think you need. The audience signals what they actually want. Which sessions drew the most questions? Where did hallway conversations cluster after a talk? That's real data about what the community wants to learn next.

The People Who Made It Happen

Events like this run entirely on volunteer effort. The team behind DMcon 2024:

Registration: Anjana Krishnan A, Bibin Joseph, Jesbin Joseph, Renjith
Sponsorship: Varadha B, Rahul Raj Valia Veetil, Muhammed Sajad
Publicity: Abin Mathew, Vignesh V., Muhammed Shehaz, Nasif Rahman A R, Sulfath V Hamsa
Gifting: Nitta Mathew Chacko, Nithin John George
Theme & Track: Gineesh Madapparambath, Vijay Raj J, Alexy Pulivelil Thomas, Anas Kadambalath
Venue Management: Sharath Manuel, Ajeesh B Kannan, Jijo Thottungal, Vishnu Shaji
Special Recognition: Rima Sidique, Sona (Riglabs), Neetha Mathew, Sibin John, Charls John, Udesh Udayakumar, Dijeesh Padinharethil, Praveesh V, Vishnu KS, Ashmil Hussain

Sponsors Who Believed Early

Gold Partner: Google for Developers
Bronze: Stackgenie, Admod Technologies
Startup Sponsors: Onepane, CyberDisti
Community Supporter: VIPoint
Ticketing Partner: KonfHub

What This Proves

"If you'd asked me three years ago if I could conduct an event like this, I would have definitely said no. But this community made it possible."

DMcon 2024 confirmed something we suspected but needed to prove: there is genuine, growing appetite for high-quality DevOps and cloud-native events in Kerala — not just among established professionals but among students and early-career engineers too.

What's Next

DMCON 2025 will be coming soon! Stay tuned. If you're in the region and want to get involved with the community as a speaker, sponsor, or volunteer — reach out.